Firefox for Android gives you the ability to add, remove and change a default search engine. There are a variety of search engines available to choose from such as Google and Bing. You can also manually add other search engines and set one of them as your default.

Change the default search engine

1. Tap the menu button.

   

2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Search from the General section.
4. Tap one of the radio buttons to select your default search engine.

Change search engine for a single search

1. Tap the search bar to start a new search.
2. Tap on Search engine.
3. Under THIS TIME, SEARCH WITH: a list of search engines will appear. Select the search engine you want to use to use for this search. (This will not change your default search engine)

Edit search settings

1. Tap the menu button.

   

2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Search from the General section.
4. Under the Address bar section toggle any of the following settings:
   • Show search engines: Display your search engines are when you tap the address bar, allowing you to use a search engine other than the default one.
   • Show clipboard suggestions: If the last thing you copied to the clipboard was a link, the option "Fill link from clipboard" shows up when you tap the address bar in a new tab.
   • Search browsing history: Include your browsing history in searches from the address bar.
   • Search bookmarks: Include your bookmarks in searches from the address bar.
   • Show search suggestions: Display search suggestions from your default search engine when you enter URLs or keywords in the address bar.
   • Show in private sessions: Display search suggestions when searching from the address bar in private browsing sessions.

Add a search engine

1. Tap the menu button.

   

2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Search from the General section.
4. Tap Add search engine.

   A list of additional predefined search engines display.

5. Tap the Other radio button to add a search engine that hasn’t been included in the predefined list and do the following:
   • Enter a name for the search engine in the Name text field.
   • Enter a search string URL in the Search string to use text field.
6. Tap the confirmation button at the top right corner of the screen.

   If the search string URL is flagged as invalid, an error message will display to help you provide a valid URL.

Please be sure to replace the query string with “%s”, for example:
https://www.google.com/search?q=%s
https://www.startpage.com/sp/search?q=%s
https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s

If you don't know which search string to use for a particular search engine, you can access its website in a new tab, do any search and use the resulting URL as a reference. For example, if you go to ecosia.org and search for firefox, the resulting URL in the address bar will be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=firefox. Then the search string must be https://www.ecosia.org/search?q=%s, replacing the query with "%s".

The search engine is added to the predefined list of search engines in alphabetical order.

Remove a search engine

1. Tap the menu button.

   

2. Tap Settings.
3. Tap Search from the General section.
4. Tap the three dots to the right of the search engine.
5. Tap Delete.

The search engine no longer displays in the list. A confirmation displays at the bottom of the screen. You can tap UNDO if you would like to add the search engine back to the predefined list. This search engine will also now appear under Add search engine if you wish to add it back again later.